great mid grade lens!
love the focal range,my most used lens! takes good indoor pics with low light and hand held.took some pics of seagulls flying and fishing at local pond and got some tack sharp images at all focal lengths! even 300mm looks sharp with 100% crops! works great with my 7d! great all around lens! only negative is focus ring a little loose but decided to go with image quality and not build quality.not L class build quality but image quality looks L class for a fraction of the cost.compact and light weight brings me out to 480mm with my 1.6 crop on my 7d. love it!
March 2, 2010

Solid
I'm a photographer with a sports magazine. We cover high school sports, which means I run into a lot of less-than-ideal lighting. For state tournaments that are held in well-lit arenas, this lens performs just fine, and I've had a lot of success at outdoor events except when there is very little natural light (I shoot with a 7D).
No complaints about the sharpness. I tend to get a little too much noise for my taste, but that's also a product of having a body that isn't as strong at higher ISO's as other bodies.
Being on a tight budget and owning just one body, the biggest strength of this lens is its versatility. Shooting sports, I often don't have time to switch lenses, so being able to go from 300 to 70 mm on a turnover, etc., is a huge asset.
I plan on getting better glass within a year (70-200), but this lens has delivered pretty solid bang for the buck. I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking to get started in sports photography.
April 13, 2014

Sharp. Great outdoor sports lens!
After initially considering 70-200 f4 non-IS, decided to give this bargain a shot. Look around and you can get this lens very very economically.
This lens will perform extremely well on sunny outdoor scenes: kids playing soccer, windsurf, surf.
Sharp under 210 and very sharp when stopped down to f/8 and up.
You can't go wrong with this lens if shooting outdoors.
This is performance-wise, along with the 50mm f1.8, the closest thing to an L lens on a budget.
March 20, 2014

I have used this lense as the photographer for my sons football team and the results have been nothing short of stunning
March 18, 2014